1. Field of Invention
The present invention relates to a navigation system and method therefor, and more particularly to a safety navigation system and method therefor wherein road information transmitted by wireless communication technology is received and statistically analyzed, thereby achieving the purpose of safe navigation.
2. Related Art
At present, an in-vehicle navigation system positions a vehicle and shows its location on a map mainly according to information received by a GPS receiver or other device, plans the optimal path to the destination according to the user's requirements, displays the position of the vehicle by way of graphic representation, and sends guide instructions to the user in a timely way by voice or through graphics according to the generated route and the position of the vehicle. However, in the event of road blockage, road construction, traffic control, or poor weather, the information cannot be reflected in the navigation system in time, and so the in-vehicle navigation system cannot always provide the best navigation service to the user. As such, it is necessary to send real-time traffic information to vehicles traveling on the road, thereby allowing the in-vehicle navigation system to provide a real-time dynamic route planning service.
Additionally, a radio data system (RDS) is used to provide real-time road information. The RDS is developed by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) and is used to provide voice and data communication through the FM wave band without establishing a particular connection channel. After the RDS medium appeared, the Traffic Management Center (TMC) was developed to send precise real-time road information via the RDS. Currently, TMC is widely used in commercial applications in Europe and the United States. However, even though TMC provides real-time road information, a driver unfamiliar with local driving routes still cannot easily change his/her route, so TMC does not fully achieve its potential.
Therefore, the in-vehicle navigation system and TMC must be used simultaneously in order to fully achieve the application efficacy. It can be appreciated that when TMC is integrated with the in-vehicle navigation system, the navigation system may select other driving routes according to the road information provided by TMC, enabling the driver to keep away from road sections where an accident or traffic block has occurred. However, the application solution of integrating the in-vehicle navigation system and TMC hasn't appeared yet, thus, even though the driver uses these two systems simultaneously, he/she must still manually enter the road information provided by TMC and request the navigation system to re-plan the route, which is quite inconvenient while driving.
Additionally, although TMC can be used to obtain real-time road information, it is limited to this only. Certain road sections where traffic problems often occur, such as traffic jams, traffic accidents, or dense fog, are not avoided from the very beginning of route planning, so the driver may easily suffer setbacks when driving on those road sections where problems often occur.